The Canyons of the Escalante is a collective name for the erosional landforms created by the

Escalante River The Escalante River is a tributary of the Colorado River. It is formed by the confluence of Upper Valley and Birch Creeks near the town of Escalante in south-central Utah, and from there flows southeast for approximately before joining Lake Po ...

and its tributariesthe ''Escalante River Basin''. Located in southern

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

in the western United States, these sandstone features include high vertical

canyon A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

walls, numerous

slot canyon A slot canyon is a long, narrow channel or drainageway with sheer rock walls that are typically eroded into either sandstone or other sedimentary rock. A slot canyon has depth-to-width ratios that typically exceed 10:1 over most of its length and ...

s, waterpockets (sandstone depressions containing temporary rainwater deposits),

domes A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

hoodoos A hoodoo (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid) is a tall, thin spire of rock formed by erosion. Hoodoos typically consist of relatively soft rock topped by harder, less easily eroded stone that protects each column from the ...

, natural arches and bridges. This areaextending over and rising in elevation from to over is one of the three main sections of the

Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument The Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument (GSENM) is a United States national monument protecting the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of the Escalante (Escalante River) in southern Utah. It was established in 199 ...

, and also a part of the

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (shortened to Glen Canyon NRA or GCNRA) is a national recreation area and conservation unit of the United States National Park Service that encompasses the area around Lake Powell and lower Cataract Canyon i ...

, with

Capitol Reef National Park Capitol Reef National Park is an American national park in south-central Utah. The park is approximately long on its northsouth axis and just wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve of desert landscape and is open all ye ...

being adjacent to the east.

Geography

The headwaters of the Escalante River are located on the slopes of the

Aquarius Plateau The Aquarius Plateau is a physiographic region in the High Plateaus Section of the Colorado Plateau Province. It is located within Garfield and Wayne counties in south-central Utah. Geography The plateau, a tectonic uplift on the much larger ...

, in Utah's Garfield County, just west of the town of

Escalante Escalante may refer to: People *Amat Escalante (born 1979), Mexican filmmaker *Bernardino de Escalante (born 1537), 16th-century Spanish writer, author of one of the first European books on China *Enrique Escalante (born 1984), Puerto Rican volley ...

. The Escalante River begins at the confluence of Birch Creek and North Creek, with the flow of Pine Creek added just below the town. The river runs a total distance of from the Birch/North Creek confluence before emptying into the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...

in Kane County. The lower section of the river, southeast of

Coyote Gulch Coyote Gulch is a tributary of the Escalante River, located in Garfield and Kane Counties in southern Utah, in the western United States. Over long,"Canyons of the Escalante", Trails Illustrated Map (1994), Coyote Gulch exhibits many of the ...

, is now beneath the surface of

Lake Powell Lake Powell is an artificial reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It is the second largest artificial reservoir by maximum ...

. Numerous side canyons also feed the main river, accounting for the large size of the basin. From the west, the major tributaries are Harris Wash, Twentyfive Mile Creek, Coyote Gulch,

Fortymile Gulch Location of Fortymile and Willow Gulches within Utah Fortymile Gulch and Willow Gulch are tributaries of the Escalante River, located in Kane County in southern Utah, in the western United States. With a combined length of over 20 miles (30&nb ...

, and Fiftymile Creek, along with the smaller Phipps, Fence, and Scorpion, Davis, Clear, and Indian Creeks. Most of these larger creeks flow from the top of the

Kaiparowits Plateau Location of the Kaiparowits Plateau within Utah The Kaiparowits Plateau is a large, elevated landform located in southern Utah, in the southwestern United States. Along with the Grand Staircase and the Canyons of the Escalante, it makes up a ...

or from the base of its eastern edge, the

Straight Cliffs Formation The Straight Cliffs Formation is a stratigraphic unit in the Kaiparowits Plateau of south central Utah. It is Late Cretaceous (latest Turonian – early Campanian) in age and contains fluvial (river systems), paralic (swamps and lagoons), and marg ...

. An even greater number of tributaries flow in from the north and east, including Death Hollow and Calf Creeks, the combined Boulder and Deer Creeks, The Gulch, Wolverine and Silver Falls Creeks, and Choprock, Moody, Stevens, and Cow Canyons. Streams from the north flow from Boulder Mountain, while those from the northeast originate in the Circle Cliffs area, near the

Waterpocket Fold The Waterpocket Fold is a geologic landform that extends from southern Wayne through Garfield and ending in northern Kane counties of southern Utah, United States.''Utah Atlas & Gazeteer,'' DeLorme, 9th ed., 2014, pp. 44, 52, 60-1 The geol ...

Geology

The sandstone layers now exposed in the Canyons of the Escalante were deposited during the

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

era, 180 to 225 million years ago, when this area was part of a large area of dunes. Near the end of the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

period, about 80 million years ago, the entire western section of North America entered an era of uplift and mountain-building, an event known as the

Laramide orogeny The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 70 to 80 million years ago, and ended 35 to 55 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the o ...

. More recently, additional uplift formed the

Colorado Plateau The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area of ...

province. These episodes of uplift raised the

to the extent that erosional solid forces were acting on the Escalante River Basin. Wetter climates during the recent

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

s of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

period contributed to the deep cutting of the canyon walls. Sandstone exposed in canyons nearer to the Colorado River is typically from the

Glen Canyon Group The Glen Canyon Group is a geologic group of formations that is spread across the U.S. states of Nevada, Utah, northern Arizona, north west New Mexico and western Colorado. It is called the Glen Canyon Sandstone in the Green River Basin of Colo ...

. The dark red cliffs of Coyote Gulch, for example, are composed of

Navajo Sandstone The Navajo Sandstone is a geological formation in the Glen Canyon Group that is spread across the U.S. states of southern Nevada, northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, and Utah as part of the Colorado Plateau province of the United States.Anonymou ...

. The lighter sandstone domes of Dance Hall Rock and Sooner Rocks are formed from the higher

Entrada sandstone The Entrada Sandstone is a formation in the San Rafael Group found in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Colorado, northwest New Mexico, northeast Arizona, and southeast Utah. Part of the Colorado Plateau, this formation was deposited during the Jur ...

layer. Due to the tilting of layers throughout the area, sandstone exposed at higher elevations near the town of Escalante (e.g. Deer Creek) may be from a lower layer,

Wingate Sandstone The Wingate Sandstone is a geologic formation in the Glen Canyon Group of the Colorado Plateau province of the United States which crops out in northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. Geology Wingate Sandstone is particularly pro ...

.Geologic Map of Capitol Reef National Park and vicinity (large PDF)
/ref>

Gallery

File:Zebra Slot (3685432880).jpg, Zebra Canyon File:StevensArchUT.jpg, Stevens Arch, near the mouth of

File:Coyote Creek (6011498609).jpg, Canyon walls and stream-bed in Coyote Gulch File:Neon Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante.jpg, Neon Canyon File:Spooky Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA.jpg, Spooky Gulch File:PeekaBoo.jpg, Peek-a-Boo Gulch

References

Bibliography

* ''Hiking the Escalante'', by Rudi Lambrechtse (1985), * ''Canyon Hiking Guide to the Colorado Plateau'', by Michael R. Kelsey (1995), * ''Canyons of the Escalante'', Trails Illustrated Map (1994),

External links

Escalante Canyon
a
Utah.comarchive

{{DEFAULTSORT:Canyons Of The Escalante Canyons and gorges of Utah Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument Canyons and gorges of Garfield County, Utah Landforms of Kane County, Utah